The St. Louis Blues’ pursuit of defenceman Jay Bouwmeester has never been a secret.

At the NHL awards ceremony in Las Vegas last June, Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock had accolades for Bouwmeester when his name came up in conversation in a hotel casino coffee place. They were together on Canada’s 2006 Olympic team.

“I see Jay as a 200-foot player. I see him as a great penalty killer, good enough to play on one of the power-play units, he’s very good against the top players,” Hitchcock said a couple of days ago.

“He’s good at the end of hockey games. He does a lot of things as a defenceman that over the course of a game you begin to appreciate.

“You don’t realize how valuable those players are until you don’t have them because the end of games becomes a fire drill.”

The Blues acquired Bouwmeester from the Calgary Flames for two bit pieces — five-foot-nine defenceman Mark Cundari and Swiss goalie Reto Berra — and a first-round draft pick this June, if the Blues make the playoffs. If not, the pick with be off the 2014 draft crop.

Cundari, who played three years in Windsor with former Spitfires teammate Taylor Hall, was an American Hockey League all-star last season, but the Blues still signed Jeff Woywitka and Taylor Chorney last summer, not feeling Cundari was a top prospect.

Berra is 26, and in their organizational scheme of things, the Blues might like former Clarkson goalie Paul Karpowich better as a long-range goaltender.

The Blues are taking on Bouwmeester’s $6.8-million contract for next season. They also have to re-sign Alex Pietrangelo — Bouwmeester’s blue-line partner, who’ll probably command $6 million a year because he’s their No. 1 and a possible Canadian Olympic player — Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk.

St. Louis also has Swedish centre Patrik Berglund, but he could be trade bait. He might fit better on another team, on left wing with his shot, than as the No. 1 or 1A centre with David Backes.

The elephant in the room in St. Louis, however, is the unsettled goaltending this season. Jaroslav Halak is a 1A goalie and Brian Elliott is as well, save for last season’s unexpected nine shutouts. Halak is prone to injury and is out with a groin problem, maybe for the rest of the regular season.

When Halak was healthy and rookie Jake Allen was winning games, Elliott looked like the only time he’d see the ice was sitting beside the Zamboni driver. But after a two-game stint in the AHL at Peoria, he actually was very good against the Chicago Blackhawks in the 4-3 shootout win Thursday.

He was also terrific on Sunday, earning a shutout against the Detroit Red Wings. He made a phenomenal glove stop on Pavel Datsyuk in traffic in the last minute.

“He looks like he’s got his game back,” Hitchcock said of Elliott.

“We could see it for four practices, then he went down and the last five periods there, he’s played well. He was excellent against the Hawks.”

Millers’s time to go?

So the Buffalo Sabres off-loaded captain Jason Pominville, one of their three core players, to the Minnesota Wild one year before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.

What about goalie Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek, the Sabres’ best natural scorer? They’re out the door, too, probably this summer.

Miller, who frankly hasn’t been the same goalie since his stellar work at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, which coincided with his Vezina Trophy-winning season, wants to join a team closer to where his actress wife Noureen DeWolf is working — namely Los Angeles.

Vanek has made no secret that he’s not up for a rebuild.

Trading him will be easier because there are more teams in the hunt for his services. Minnesota might jump in for him, too.

He lives in Minnesota, where he attended college, in the summer.

The Sabres still have a truckload of prospects to wheel and deal.

Miller? He’s a different story.

He might want to play in California for personal reasons, but the Kings already have the two Jonathans, Quick and Bernier, in net.

The Anaheim Ducks have Jonas Hiller and one of the season’s true finds, Viktor Fasth.

The Vancouver Canucks will again be trying to move Roberto Luongo this summer with Cory Schneider as their No. 1.

“There’s a market for Miller, not a big one, but there’ll be a market,” said TSN analyst Craig Button, the former Calgary Flames GM and a draft guru.

“You’re only getting one year on his contract and the salary cap, while dropping next year ($70.2 mil to $64.3 mil) might go up in 2014-15.

“I hear revenues could be $2.6 billion this year in a lockout season and the Canadian TV contract comes up for renewal.”

Most people feel Miller still has game, still feel he’s in the top 10-12 in NHL goalies, but he’s no longer a top 5 player.

Who needs a goalie?

Maybe St. Louis.

Calgary does if Miikka Kiprusoff retires, but with Miller’s no-trade clause — he can list eight teams he won’t play for — he’s not waiving it to go there, is he?

The Detroit Red Wings will need a goalie if they don’t want to pay UFA Jimmy Howard $5 million to $5.5 million a year.

The Edmonton Oilers? Hey, anything’s possible, although they have hitched their wagon to Devan Dubnyk, but only for a two-year contract at $3.5 million a season.

Time for a Hockey Hall overhaul

Allan Muir at SI.com beat me to this, but now that former Oilers head coach Pat Quinn is running the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee, it’s time for some changes.

It’s long overdue that the Hall of Fame selection committee reveals who could get in and who was close and the vote totals, rather than cloak it in secrecy like it’s a vote for the new Pope.

Baseball does it — it keeps the interest up and lets fans debate the merits of who was missed.

And there are way too few voters (18) on the committee, including the chairman (Quinn), and you need 14 yes votes to get elected.

The NHL Hockey Writers’ Association currently has more voters for the Elmer Ferguson award (writing) than for the players and the builders’ category of the HHOF. How is that possible? There should be at least as many voters for the HHOF as there are teams in the NHL which is 30, don’t you think?

Also, what does it take to get in as a builder?

Has the late Fred Shero been blackballed because he coached the notorious, but winning Broad Street Bullies, a.k.a. the Philadelphia Flyers? Mike Keenan, love him or hate him — we’ll let the players who played for him decide that — won 672 games as a coach. He’s not in.

Clare Drake, the legendary university coach who has the backing of many of today’s NHL coaches as one of their guiding lights, barely got a sniff when nominated.

The late Pat Burns? He should be there, too.

The NHL voting system needs a major overall. The NFL Hall of Fame selection has 46 selectors on their committee. As long as you are a 10-year member of the Baseball Writers of America, you get to vote for the players. Hockey needs full disclosure in their voting and more voters.

What about Simmer?

Charlie Simmer, who sadly does not have his No. 11 retired in Los Angeles while former Kings Dionne (16) and Taylor (18) do, was traded once but not at the deadline. He went to Boston Bruins for a first-round pick.

The Kings took Dan Gratton, who played seven NHL games, all with the Kings.

“Pat (coach Quinn) looked at him (Gratton) and said he needed to put on five or 10 pounds of muscle. Next year, Gratton came back and Pat said he’d put on 10 or 15 pounds of Molson,” Simmer said, laughing.

Simmer had back-to-back 56-goal seasons with Dionne and Taylor in L.A.

“Broke my leg after those two seasons. Made sure I didn’t have to keep that (run) up,” said Simmer, who now works as the Calgary Flames television commentator.

Will Gagner be gone?

The Edmonton Oilers have a thorny issue with centre Sam Gagner this summer.

His contract is up, but in one more year, he will be an unrestricted free agent at age 25, with seven years of NHL experience.

Do the Oilers sign him for four or five years, eating well into his unrestricted free-agent status or do they trade him?

Gagner’s marketability has never been higher.

The Detroit Red Wings will need a centre if they don’t re-sign UFA Val Filppula.

So will the Washington Capitals if Mike Ribeiro leaves.

Same story in Columbus, with Blue Jackets’ Derick Brassard gone to the New York Rangers for Marian Gaborik.

How about the Nashville Predators or the Winnipeg Jets? And in Anaheim if veteran Ducks forward Saku Koivu retires?

If it was my choice, I would keep Gagner. He’s a leader without a letter on his jersey, and I think he’d do just as well on the wing, where faceoff wins and losses aren’t hanging over his head.

But we also know it’s better to trade a player a year before UFA status than a few months from it.

“Give Chuck Fletcher in Minnesota a lot of credit for trading Brent Burns to San Jose when he was one year away for Charlie Coyle, a first-round pick and Devin Setoguchi. Coyle’s playing now,” Button said.

We know the mandate of the Oilers is to find a big centre. I suspect if they are picking from seven through 10 in the June entry draft, they would take Ottawa’s Sean Monahan.

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